Moulton proposes bill to support interstate sharing of driving records in wake of N.H. crash

In the wake of a June crash that killed seven motorcyclists and exposed the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles’ failure to process thousands of out-of-state violations, US Representative Seth Moulton is proposing a bill that would support better collection and interstate sharing of driver data.

Moulton’s State and Federal Electronic Data Records to Improve Vehicle-operator Eligibility Reporting Systems Act — or SAFE DRIVERS Act — is intended to keep roads free of drivers like 23-year-old Volodymyr Zhukovskyy of West Springfield.

Zhukovskyy was driving on a commercial license when he allegedly hit and killed seven bikers from the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, a group of former Marines that rides and does charity work together, even though the Ukrainian immigrant had a checkered driving record that included two previous arrests for drunken driving.

Moulton, a Marine combat veteran, plans to announce his bill at a news conference Tuesday in Danvers. He previewed it for The Boston Globe on Monday, reflecting on his personal reaction to the deaths of five fellow veterans, one Marine’s wife, and another’s girlfriend.

“It really hit home,” the Salem Democrat said in a phone interview. “These were great Americans, still serving their community back here at home with all the charitable work this group does.”

His bill would expand the acceptable uses for an existing federal highway safety grant to include an array of upgrades to support data collection, maintenance, and sharing among states and the federal government. It also would set aside up to $50 million in its initial year to support the introduction of new data management programs, which are estimated to cost up to $5 million per state. That program could be renewed at Congress’s discretion.

“The bill expands it and modernizes it, because right now you can’t use these grants to do the type of digital modernization that you need to be able to do to fix this database problem,” said Moulton, who ended a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in August and is now seeking reelection in the Sixth Congressional District.

The revelation of the Massachusetts RMV’s failure to process years of notices from other states led to the resignation of its registrar and the firing of the director of the Registry’s Merit Rating Board. As the RMV has scrambled in recent months to process the notices, more than 2,400 Massachusetts drivers have had their licenses suspended.

New Hampshire officials also found a lengthy backlog of unprocessed notices from other states and have suspended more than 900 licenses.

George Loring III, the treasurer of the South Shore chapter of the Jarheads MC, said Moulton’s bill is the first legislative effort he’s heard about that is intended to prevent a similar tragedy, and he supports it in principle.

“If it’s going to help in the future, definitely I’m all for it,” said Loring, 66, of Weymouth. “If somebody’s lost their license — or should have lost it — and they’re driving without one, definitely it needs to be brought to the forefront.”

Manny Ribeiro, president of the Jarheads MC, said he hopes Moulton’s bill can make roads safer, but he is exasperated by what he sees as slowness, inefficiency, and a lack of transparency or accountability in government.

“It’s 2019. The Internet is alive and well. Everybody communicates with everybody with a blink of an eye,” said Ribeiro, 49, who asked why state and federal agencies are seemingly decades behind the ubiquitous technology.

“Clearly he’s trying to do something because he knows there’s a problem, so kudos for that,” Ribeiro said of Moulton. But he added later, “He shouldn’t be filing legislation 3½ months later. It should be immediate.”

Moulton acknowledged earlier Monday that the bill wouldn’t accomplish all he would like to do, given that many states across the country have backlogs of unprocessed notices, but it would provide resources to start making desperately needed improvements.

“In a perfect world, we would fund a complete change for all 50 states right at once,” he said. “But that’s not the way government works, unfortunately.”